Rumors and reports indicate Clint Eastwood will appear in Chrysler's two minute Super Bowl commercial and give the country what some are calling a pep talk. That's all we really know at this point. We have to believe (and we hope) that any ad featuring Eastwood will be nothing short of awesome. Well, we'll know on Sunday.

Social Rewards, a social loyalty platform, has closed a seed round of angel funding totaling $600,000. The company was self-funded for a year with $250,000 from founders Joseph Morin and Mike Uesugi before raising any outside capital, and exceeded its original funding goal of $500,000.

Social Rewards provides a brand's customers with loyalty points for engaging in social media activity via Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, and YouTube. Points may be earned, deposited, redeemed, donated, or transferred into a "bank" built on the Social Rewards platform. The offering combines social media, affiliate marketing, and loyalty rewards to help companies identify brand ambassadors and increase social engagement.

We all know the world is going to in sometime in 2012, right? After all a movie told us so. So it makes perfect sense a brand capitalize on the notion. And that's just what Chevrolet does in this epic, end of the world scenario which ends with a few guys gathering together only to realize one of their friends didin't make it. Why? He was driving a Ford. Ouch!

Hmm. If only the bugs that got stuck on most car grills where this talkative and friendly. So here is Chevy's Super Bowl commercial for the Sonic. Somehow featuring bugs adorning the grill of the vehicle for a joy ride is supposed to sell the vehicle. We must be missing something. Oh right. This is a SUper Bowl commercial. It's not supposed to make sense.

In this week's episode of Future Of Engagement, we meet Meltwater Group Marketing and Communications Director Kimling Lam. She speaks to host Murray Newlands about the importance of listening to customers, using social for CRM and social media monitoring.

Kimling has been at Meltwater, a social media monitoring company 'natch since 2006. She comes from a journalistic background and has produced and delivered news stories featuring live, on-air shots for KSBW, an NBC affiliate.

Well here it is. And it is quite the extravagant production. We like. Created by TBWA\Chiat\Day and titled King's Court, the ad features X Factor winner Melanie Amaro singing a version of Otis Redding's Respect recorded specifically for the ad to a kingly Elton John. The ad was directed by Noam Murro. Pepsi fans who Shazam the spot during the game will be able to view Amaro's music video for Respect.

It's widely known tailored online customer experiences based on customer profiling will lead to higher engagement and increased conversion. Look at Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook. All of them are directly involved in building customer profiles. Apple has its iTunes store, where it collects customer data and serves as intermediary to other companies selling music and apps. Google's entire business model is built around collecting customer profiles through its free search engine and through Picasa, Google Docs and Android. And Facebook's entire reason for being, apart from giving you a great social experience, is to collect all they can about users so it can serve relavant ads.

What's your customer profile strategy? Do you even have a strategy? Do you even have a database of customer profiles? If not, read on to find out how to leverage customer profiles. And if so, read on anyway. You just might find out how to do it better.

Yes, the USA Today Ad Meter will get undue attention next week. But we should really turn our attention to YouTube's Ad Blitz which will ask viewers to vote through February 13. It will then post it's "winning" - and we use that term lightly - spot on the homepage February 18. Check out the promotional video below.

"No one wants to be amazing at something awful. But it happened to me." Those are the words of Todd Bieber who, in his own words, "used to make shitty local commercials in rural Pennsylvania."

He's taking his story on the road with a comedy storytelling routine that will reveal his experiences making these "ridiculously horrible commercials." You can see his work and hear his story at upcoming shows at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York and LA. Live appearances are Monday, February 6th and 20th at 8PM in New York and Monday, February 27th at 6PM in LA.

Oh, Jennifer Connelly. Back in the day - before her Academy Award winning stardom - the girl was just another teen actor with two big assets which she proudly flaunted in the 1990 flick, The Hot Spot, and the 1991 movie, Career Opportunities. And let's not forget The Rocketeer. Watching her on screen was a transfixing experience. It still is. The reaction is just a little different now. A little more grown up.

Anyway, the woman can now be seen as the global spokesperson for Shiseido's skincare line, Future Solution LX. The campaign will debut this fall. Two decades ago, Connelly appeared in one of the brand's product lines which was distributed in Japan.

E*Trade has unveiled its 30-second "Talking Baby" Super Bowl ad. The spot, entitled "Fatherhood," features the E*Trade Baby reassuring a nervous new dad about planning for his newborn daughter's future. The pair are interrupted by Bobby who's having his way with the newborns in the nursery.